


Honor unheeded and honor made

by Baozhale



Category: Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: AU sketch/outline, Gen, Kel doesn't pass her probationary year
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-07-15 07:41:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16058594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baozhale/pseuds/Baozhale
Summary: Spin-off from To heed the voice of honor, by dirgewithoutmusic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12149109/chapters/27567330Kel doesn't pass her probationary year. Alanna isn't pleased, and informs Jon that she won't be avoiding Kel anymore. And of course, there are ripple effects.





	1. Trespasser

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [to heed the voice of honor](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12149109) by [dirgewithoutmusic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirgewithoutmusic/pseuds/dirgewithoutmusic). 



Keladry of Mindelan took the summer to think, living in her parent's townhouse. She practiced in the palace yards, while page classes were not in session and there was no Lord Wyldon of Cavall to call her tresspasser. She drank tea with her mother and practiced with the glaive the training master had called a barbarian's weapon alongside her practice with the sword and staff.

\--

Sir Alanna of Pirate's Swoop and Olau (Baroness of Pirate's Swoop too, but she used her own title rather than the one she held by being married thank you very much) wanted to gallop immediately onto the scene and throw Keladry onto the back of her horse, then take her adventuring. She did not do this, for four reasons.  
  


  1. Lord Sir Raoul of Goldenlake asked her to wait. (If she was honest, that was most of the reason.)

  2. She should give Kel the summer to figure out where _she_ wanted to go from here. (OK, Raoul. That's a good point.)

  3. She should give _Jon_ the summer to come to his senses. (Fine, Raoul. Now help him do so.)

  4. She didn't adventure all that often anymore, what with the kids and being King's Champion and all. She needed to prepare at least a little bit before getting back into it. (Kel probably wasn't ready for adventuring either, at eleven. Perhaps they could spend some time near home, first?)




Instead, Sir Alanna of Pirate's Swoop and Olau and Lord Sir Raoul of Goldenlake took the summer to decide how they would proceed come fall. (To be fair, Raoul was trying to calm Alanna down more than he was trying to plan, at this point.) Since Keladry was no longer on a path to knighthood, Alanna felt no continued obligation to avoid the girl. If Keladry returned to Mindelan, whichever of them could get there first (probably Alanna, as she was not obligated to the King's Own) would meet with her to discuss options. If she stayed in Corus, Raoul would meet with her. They decided what they would say if Keladry spoke of joining the Queen's Riders at sixteen, of returning to Yaman, of trying to become one of the warriors of the Goddess protecting a temple, or of simply running away to hunt bandits on her own. (Alanna would take Keladry adventuring herself, in the last case.)

They also took the summer to express, in no uncertain terms, their displeasure with both Jon and Wyldon. Raoul shouted at King Jonathan in person, as the Own was in Corus, while Alanna had announced via letter that she would be continuing her exile from Corus until such time as Keladry received satisfaction. (Raoul convinced her not to state what form the satisfaction must take. He couldn't convince her not to write the letter, so he agreed to deliver it so he'd know the king's response.)

Alanna remained forbidden to challenge for insult, and would remain so for as long as she served as King's Champion, but she wrote Wyldon detailing every reason she would if she could. She hoped it would annoy him enough that he'd challenge _her_. It didn't work. Raoul offered to challenge him instead, though not at jousting. Alanna thanked him for the offer, but declined. She didn't want a man fighting her battles for her. It would be entirely against the point.

\--

On the first day of what would have (should have) been Keladry's second year of page training, she woke before the sun and had a quiet breakfast with her father, and then she jogged up the big dusty hill to the palace grounds. She followed the pages lessons just outside the practice yard fence, while Lord Wyldon and some of the older pages called her _trespasser_.

Neal smuggled homework assignments in and out, for her, though only Myles and the one Mithran priest who never bothered learning anyone's names graded her written work. Stefan let her take a horse out to try the riding exercises after the pages went inside. The Shang masters lingered by the fence and drawled corrections that would be relevant to Kel, loudly enough for her to overhear. Kel took Lalasa on when Gower asked it of her, behind the stables, bringing her to her parents townhouse as another maid. Alanna and Raoul met in Port Caynne, as soon as the Own returned to Corus, to decide _what now?_ “Kel lives at her parents townhouse and trains as if she were still a page” had not been one of the eventualities they'd planned for.

\--

Raoul, and sometimes Buri, and sometimes men of the King's Own or men or women from the Queen's Riders began to appear outside, across from “the kid who comes down here every day to fight empty air.”

Alanna, the Lioness, did not appear – she still wasn't coming to Corus. Kel didn't know the Lioness was refusing to come to the capital until Kel received satisfaction, or the logistical difficulties this was causing Jon due to the nobles who were _still_ demanding trial by combat in droves. She didn't know the appearance of her sparring partners was, at least initially, the Lioness's doing – Raoul's attempt to keep Alanna from making a huge mess by way of publicly grabbing Kel from the wrong side of the practice yard fence, then shouting at Wyldon, the training yard instructors, and the King as loudly as possible on the way out. She only knew the Lioness remained a legend, and a ghost.

\--

Raoul overheard the Shang masters discussing their plan for the time the pages would spend in the field, and let Alanna know. The hills were not Corus, and Alanna outright _cackled_. She'd known she liked Shang warriors.

\--

Eda caught Kel on the way down the hill, one evening, and asked Kel to be her aide on the trip. She reminded Kel that Wyldon no longer had any say in what Kel did or where Kel went. “I think he thinks he might,” Kel said.

“So he can learn otherwise. It'll be good for him to learn we womenfolk are under no obligation to do more than ignore him.” Eda winked. “You should pack.”

Kel packed, and she rode at the back of the page's party. Eda smiled when Wyldon spotted Kel, and _laughed_ when a short woman with red hair rode in sight. When the woman was within shouting distance of the party, Wyldon shouted at her, “No! Absolutely not!”

“The road isn't your private property, Cavall!” the woman shouted back. “And neither is the hill country!” She rode up next to Eda and Kel, who finally got a look at her face. Purple eyes. Alanna the Lioness.

Kel gaped.

“Lord Wyldon thinks noble women shouldn't be warriors. Any women, really, but he keeps his mouth shut around Shang like Eda,” she said, nodding at the other woman. “I disagree, and I think you know I'm not above breaking a few rules to get where I think I should be. Or just because I feel like it.”

That was … one way to describe the eight years Alanna had spent pretending to be a boy. Only years spent in the Yamani Islands kept Kel from bursting out laughing, and she still smiled. “I like the line about the hill country not being his private property,” Kel said.

“Perhaps you'll make use of it this week, then,” Alanna said.

–-

Kel did, in fact, make use of the line, though it was not shouted as Alanna had done. She followed the boys into the forest and then the valley, informing their silence, “The country isn't your private property, or Lord Wyldon's.” Then they found the bandits, and Kel took command, bringing them all up the narrow path to the clifftop cave.

“We would have died without you there,” Faleron said, as Lord Wyldon, Sir Alanna, and the local bandit hunters rode into the canyon below. Kel sent the pages ahead of her, unintentionally providing herself with an audience for her descent, then rejected the Shang's offer of being lowered on an improvised stretcher for her injury as Merric had been. She climbed down, and then she vomited at the base of the cliff.

She found herself faced with both Lord Wyldon's dun mare. “Now you've seen blood, I'm sure, you realize combat isn't women's work. Is it too much to hope you've thought better of your failed experiment and stubbornness?”

Sir Alanna opened her mouth to shout at him, as she often had throughout the camping trip, but Owen was faster. “Sir, that isn't fair,” he said.

“What is not fair, Owen of Jesslaw?” demanded Wyldon. Sir Alanna watched the young page with interest, but he didn't seem to notice, eyes fixed on the training master. He didn't notice Kel's signal to hush, either.

“Sir, you talk like Keladry couldn't handle the fighting. She's the one who saved our bacon, Sir. She's just sick from the climbing. Which was her idea in the first place. The fight didn't bother her, even when she killed that man.” He pointed to the raider who lay nearby, Kel's spear in his belly. “Or that one,” he added, pointing at the one with her arrow in his collarbone.

Faleron spoke up. “We might be dead but for Kel, my lord. I froze when they came at us. Kel's the one with the cool head. She found that cave when we all thought we were trapped.”

The other members of their hunting party chorused agreement. Lord Wyldon failed to reply to the descriptions of the pages, other than ordering them to mount up and ignoring Kel's presence on the mount Stefan had sent up with her. Sir Alanna remained quiet until the party began to ride to the army outpost. She rode at the back of the party, next to Merric's stretcher. Satisfied that Merric would be fine until they reached the army outpost, she spoke quietly to Neal, who remained with Merric. Kel heard her say something about how learning to heal, and to her surprise, there was no snappy retort.

Then Alanna turned to Keladry, who had also remained near the injured member of her party. Kel looked at the woman beside her, who really wasn't ten feet tall and was in fact a touch shorter at _legend_ than she was at … her twelfth birthday. It was her birthday. She couldn't help it. She started laughing.

Owen pulled beside her, keeping an eye on her mount.

“Are you alright?” Owen and Alanna asked her, almost simultaneously.

Kel pulled herself together. “It's my birthday. I just remembered that now because” – she giggled again – “because I'm at least as tall as you are and I'm _twelve_ today.”

Alanna snorted. “I know, I'm a shrimp. Don't ask me how people actually believed I was a boy, at my size.”

\--

Alanna and the army outpost healer patched Merric up, talking tricks and making sure Neal was paying attention. Neal had time to master them as the pages spent the remainder of the summer camp at the outpost, housed in one of the barracks. Lord Wyldon ensured the pages helped the captain, who had claimed the district was cleared of bandits, to actually clear the area. The pages were only permitted to be backup archers and scouts, paired with soldiers who kept them quiet and out of the way. These fights were not so “jolly” as the valley fight, as Owen put it, but they were safer for the pages.

Eda gave up her “aide” in favor of letting Keladry stay with Alanna, who remained at the outpost as well. Kel was thus effectively paired with Sir Alanna, who no one would argue with while she held a sword. Her fights were, in Owen's terms, more “jolly” than the pages fights, and she got to overhear those in charge make plans of attack – then throw them out as conditions changed.

“Plans are useless, but _planning_ valuable,” Alanna informed her. “Plans fall apart as soon as the other people do something unexpected, but planning means you've given thought to what _you'll_ do.”

At the end of the pages two months in the field, as they neared Corus, Kel finally asked Alanna, “I heard you wouldn't come to Corus the last two years because you were mad about something to do with me. Is that true?”

“Near enough. The first year, King Jonathan ordered me to stay away from you, because he was concerned about those yammering conservatives claiming I'd magic you your shield, or some such nonsense. So I told him I would be as far from Corus as possible. Then when His Stumpishness ignored what tatters of honor he yet had to kick you out, and Jon allowed it? I informed him I wouldn't be returning until you “received satisfaction.” Raoul delivered that letter for me. You've caused quite the stir, my young lady. Please continue to do so. Now, what are you planning to do for the rest of the summer?”

\--

Keladry returned to her parent's house in the city for just long enough to unpack, repack, and inform the house servants, including Lalasa, that she would be spending the pages two month break with the King's Champion, primarily but perhaps not entirely at Pirate's Swoop. She took took her glaives, her Yamani bow, her _shukusen_ , and the weighted practice weapons she had purchased from a carpenter in the city, whittling buttons while the carpenter worked. She wouldn't be missed – her parents were away on the summer visits paid by nobility, particularly when nobility had daughters to marry off.

\--

Alianne breathed a sigh of relief when she saw her mother return with Kel. At nine, she had already realized her mother always needed to have a project. This summer, her project was clearly teaching this girl who _wanted_ knighthood as much as possible. She followed along for some of the lessons in woodcraft, and for the healer's knowledge that _didn't_ require a Gift, but stayed well out of the way when the swords, axes, and glaives came out. She'd stick to daggers and code-breaking, thank you very much.

–-

Kel's parents arrived at Pirate's Swoop towards the end of their summer visiting. Not because they expected to marry anyone off at Pirate's Swoop – George and Alanna might not stand on Alanna's Book of Gold heritage, as made apparent by their own marriage, but their boys were a bit young yet and Alanna had no intention of arranging their marriages in any case. No. They realized Kel might not return to the Tortallan capital anytime soon, and they _did_ need to take her out as congratulations for her command at the Battle of the Cliff, which both Eda Bell and Alanna had written them about. (Lord Wyldon wrote no such letter about the exploits of the not-quite-trespasser who saved his pages.)

Alanna and George argued jokingly about who, properly, should receive the Baron and Baroness of Mindelan, as George was the Lord of the castle while Alanna was the only knight in residence, King's Champion, and also the one who'd taken responsibility for their daughter. (They greeted the Mindelan parents together, of course. Arguing about the proper procedure was a way of joking that it didn't _exist_ , not a discussion of what they would do in practice. In their home, flouting convention hilariously was the _real_ fun.)

Kel was reminded of why her parents were such respected diplomats. They could get along with anyone, including the notoriously prickly King's Champion. And they were _very_ appreciative of how Alanna had taken Kel under her wing this past summer. Alanna, for her part, noticed how Kel's parents supported their daughter: not with declarations, but with a quiet acceptance of (and failure to question!) their daughter's unconventional path.

At the end of Kel's parents visit to Pirate's Swoop, they asked their youngest daughter what she intended to do now. Return to the Yamani Islands? Travel with Alanna, who clearly enjoyed training the younger lady not-knight errant? Join the Queen's Riders at sixteen? Follow her elder sister into the Queen's ladies, if she could?

 


	2. Adventure, Ho?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fork point: in this chapter, Kel goes with Alanna. In chapter 3, Kel makes a different choice at the end of summer, post Battle of the cliff.

In the universe where Kel stayed with Alanna, they didn't quite thunder off into the sunset after Alanna shouted, “If you won't teach her then I goddamn will.” Not because Alanna didn't want to do it that way. Raoul asked her to wait. Given the class of pages Kel saved from the bandits, Alanna even thought she had been right to wait. Not that Raoul could have known that would happen, as Alanna reminded him. Several times. 

Instead, there was a quiet conversation. “What will you do now?” Kel's parents asked their youngest daughter. And Kel said she'd travel with Alanna, if Alanna would have her.

For two years, they traveled the world, refusing to set foot in the capital until “Kel recieves satisfaction,” and still not specifying what that would mean. Neither Jon nor Wyldon replied to this demand, though Thayet sent earrings for Alanna and notes for Alanna and Kel. This is how Kel learned Princess Kalasin had wanted to go for her shield as well, that Thayet had moved into her own quarters for a year after Jon “talked her out of it,” and that she'd done so again after Jon refused to override Wyldon on “failing” Kel.  
They visited Alanna's adopted father at Olau for a month one summer. There was a visit to Trebond, and another to Mindelan, one of the rare times Kel's parents were actually there. Alanna offered to sail to the Yamani Isles, once. Raoul overheard and told tales of Alanna's seasickness. Kel had no intention of putting the woman who'd taken her under her wing through that misery. Winter sent them south – Alanna still hated cold, after all. Kel got to meet the shamans Alanna had trained, at the center of magical learning that still grew around them. Once they wound up in Maren, and once Scanra. Kel met quite a few “Whisper Man” contacts, those two years – when they weren't with the Own or the Riders, that was.

And they did spend quite a bit of time with the Own and the Riders. Since Alanna was under no obligation to avoid Kel, who was too young to be a squire still and wouldn't become Raoul's squire in this world regardless, they could. When Own and Riders worked together, Alanna and Kel were usually there. Raoul and Buri both taught Kel about command, remembering what they'd been told about Kel's actions at the Battle of the Cliff. They told her about the four kinds of warriors, heroes like Alanna, ordinary knights like her brothers, soldiers, and commanders, like themselves, or the Queen. (She noticed that Raoul called Buri a natural commander, but made no such claim for himself. Buri, in turn, called Raoul a natural commander and made no such claim for herself.) They told her she had shown flashes of being a commander, and that if they could get her to do more than flash, the realm could use her, would be foolish not to use her.

Duke Baird, chief of the realms healers and Neal's father, did not ask Sir Alanna about taking Neal as her squire. He assumed, not incorrectly, that she was busy with Kel. It was Kel who suggested Neal would do well with her mentor. (It would also give Kel the chance to travel with her best friend and former crush, telling him to eat his vegetables.) “If they take an issue with it because I'm with you, you can point out that I'm not a squire, and they have only themselves to blame for that,” she said. Two years travel with Alanna taught her how to sharpen her tongue, when she wished. Yamani manners died hard, so she didn't use the skill often, but she'd had plenty of examples provided for shouting at or about the King. Perhaps too many for someone who wasn't King's Champion to get away with, though she wasn't expecting any opportunities to shout at King Jonathan himself.

“You know we'd have to go to the palace to make Neal an offer,” Alanna said, once she finished laughing at Kel's comment about the training master and king having only themselves to blame for Kel's lack of official (and thus lack of easily controllable) status.

So they traveled to Corus. They stopped at Kel's parents townhouse, and then at Eleni's home, before heading to the palace. Alanna didn't talk to Baird or to Jon before asking Neal to be her squire, but she did bring Kel with her. Neal tried to argue, because of course he still thought Kel should have been Alanna's squire. Kel asked if he'd been eating his vegetables these last two years. (He hadn't.) Kel then asked Neal if he really thought she was going to stop traveling with Alanna just because she took a squire. (Neal remembered the year Kel spent as an unwanted trespasser. Of course he didn't think Kel would go home.) Alanna pointed out that she was both a knight and a healer, though not a university-trained one and thus under no obligation not to kill with her Gift. Didn't he wish he'd had more training? He'd seemed eager enough for it two years ago, after the Battle of the Cliff. (Yes. He might regret the statement at times in the next four years, but he did want more training.) As in the world where Kel became Raoul's squire, Neal became Alanna's squire. 

Of course Duke Baird and King Jon both found out Alanna took Neal as a squire, even if she didn't ask them first. Baird didn't care that Kel was already traveling with Alanna. Alanna said she could give Neal the attention he required as her squire, and that was enough for him. Jon shouted. Alanna used Kel's line about her not being a squire and asked how long he wanted it to be before she returned to the capital this time. She was only there now because Kel suggested she could teach Neal about the combination of healing and knighthood in a way no one else could. Jon gave in before Thayet sent him to his room. Again.

So Neal joined their travels, often with the Own and the Riders. When there were injured or sick civilians, Alanna would bring Neal to the healers tents, set up with them, and get to work with her squire. At this point, Kel would wander off towards Raoul and Buri to watch the processes of command, to continue learning, and with increasing frequency, to make suggestions that were taken. She held no official position with the Own or the Riders, and thus could not be promoted, but when she was placed with a squad, they looked to her for orders in tight spots. 

On progress, Kel was seated with Alanna at meals. By now, everyone involved had learned that excluding Kel didn't work if they wanted to keep the Lioness around. Even if Alanna didn't shout, she'd leave. And there was rarely anywhere else they could seat Kel, who had no official status. For this, Alanna was challenged. Frequently. So she put swords to the noses of conservatives who took Alanna's support of Kel as a personal insult. Alanna might be forbidden to challenge for insult, but if others challenged her, she was free to teach them the error of their ways. That is, Alanna put swords to their noses when Raoul wasn't knocking them out of their saddles. Raoul's support of Alanna's support of Kel was apparently enough to let conservatives dare challenge him at jousting again. For Kel's part, she was rarely challenged – it was apparently considered unsporting to challenge a noble woman who wasn't a knight, even if she could hold her own, as she demonstrated in sword and axe exhibitions Alanna, Buri, or Raoul helped set up. And there was glaive training with the queen, the Yamanis, her mother, Buri, and Alanna, who'd taken interest in the weapon as soon as she'd seen Kel use it.

Then the Own went north to build Giantkiller, and Alanna took Kel and Neal for the last bits of adventuring they could get in before Neal was due his Ordeal and Alanna would be stationed somewhere as the war in earnest. Kel would not face The Ordeal, but she faced plenty of lowercase o ordeals. Traveling with with a hero, the sort of person who finds a dark place and fights in it alone tended to come with ordeals, even when that hero is trying to protect a page-aged child or traveling with the equivalent of two squires in tow. 

That's not to say she didn't have a shield. Kel and Alanna made it together before midwinter the year Neal faced his Ordeal and Kel should have faced hers. Alanna and Neal both silently dared anyone to say a word about the shield Kel carried to the Scanran front, when they were both ordered there, and Kel, being Kel, followed. Neal was in charge of the refugee camp, and Kel went with him, knowing he would need the help with command more than Alanna would need help with … anything at her station, really. She took latrine duty and sentry watches, and she drilled refugees in combat using whatever weapons they had. She taught the children, too, in the first hour before dawn. 

Kel and Neal were both at Giantkiller when the news came that Haven had been overrun. Raoul sent Dom's squad with Neal to assess the damage, and he sent word on to Alanna. She would want to know what had happened to Kel and Neal's current home, faster than the official reports would come in. 

Kel disobeyed no orders when she went into Scanran territory after the refugees. The men of the Own who followed them into Scanran territory disobeyed none either. Neal did, and Alanna did (in the world where Alanna and Kel traveled together for six years, would you expect to see Kel in Scanran territory without the Lioness at her back?) There were three people with Whisper Man connections, this time, getting them over the river. They followed the refugees, who fought back at every step, and freed the adults, who followed them to the Nothing Man's castle. Alanna and Neal both healed wounds, after the fight, and Kel lead them home. 

Neal was pardoned. Alanna was pardoned. The convict soldiers from Haven were pardoned. Kel needed no pardon, as she had not been in the crown's employ or working under its orders since shortly after her eleventh birthday. The men of the Own needed no pardon either, since Raoul insisted their jaunt had been “within operational parameters.” That is to say, they hadn't been specifically ordered across the border, but as far as Raoul was concerned, Dom had the authority to decide to go after the refugees, knowing the likelihood that doing so would lead to the source of the now defunct killing machines.

In the world where Kel went with Alanna after her trespasser year, it was Thayet, not Jon, who called Kel for an audience three months after the pardons. Kel went, and Alanna went with her – if the front was going to go without technically unaffiliated Kel for a royal audience, it was going to go without her Lioness as well. Alanna did arrange for a sanctioned leave, this time.

When Kel arrived, Alanna at her back, she found Buri already in the room with Thayet. Eight years ago, Kel had considered joining the Queen's Riders at sixteen if page training failed her, as it had. Seven years ago, Buri had stood on the wrong side of the low practice yard fence, doing drills with an eleven year old who was too stubborn to give up on a dead dream of knighthood. Six, five, four, three, and two years ago, Buri helped teach Kel about strategy, tactics, logistics. “I won't be in charge of the Riders forever, you know,” Buri had said, once. “And Queen Thayet, not the king, chooses the command of the Riders.”

The audience turned out to be about just that. Buri wasn't retiring now, but she knew (and Thayet agreed) that Kel should replace her when she did. Would she join up with the Riders officially, until then?

Of course she would.

Kel had told herself for years it wasn't about the shield, but about helping people. For the first time, she believed it. Alanna kept the shield they'd made together.


	3. King's Own Aide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fork point: in this chapter, Kel goes back to the palace, though Alanna's not avoiding her anymore. In chapter 2, Kel makes a different choice at the end of summer, post Battle of the cliff.

Piers and Ilane didn't expect their daughter to say she would return to the palace, as the too-stubborn trespasser, but say so she did. She wasn't a page, and she had no expectation of becoming one through pure stubbornness. Less than none, really – she and Alanna had been ordered separated while she was on the path to knighthood, and this past summer was the opposite of separation from the Lioness. They didn't ask why she was returning to Corus for another year outside the low practice yard fence. Kel was grateful – she couldn't have said why. She just felt, somehow, that it was what she should do.

Alanna asked. She'd never liked “I don't know why I need to do this, but I do,” but she'd been there. She knew better than to think arguing would _do_ anything. (That didn't stop her arguing.) She even asked the Great Mother Goddess if she knew what was going on. (The Goddess responded. Unfortunately, the response wasn't particularly enlightening.)

On their ride back to Corus, Piers and Ilane got Kel's retelling of the Battle of the Cliff, as it was now called, rather than the second hand reports from Eda Bell and from Alanna. They _also_ got to hear about their daughter's summer with the King's Champion, the best sword fighter in Tortall.

 

\--

 

On the pages last day of freedom before training began again, Keladry once again did not move back into the palace. She went to help Neal unpack, to see her friends, and, apparently, to meet Owen's younger cousins. Owen informed her he wished she could have sponsored one of the pair. Kel had to laugh – even had Lord Wyldon let her stay, she could never have seen herself sponsoring a page. It'd do them no favors to be sponsored by a page at the bottom of the training master's list, even if Joren and cronies departure would have let the fights calm down.

She was cutting through the palace grounds on her way back to the city when she saw a nobleman with a sheaf of papers in his hand. Kel recognized Sir Gareth the Younger, the king's closest adviser and friend.

He seemed to recognize her former station, if not her name. “You're one of the pages, aren't you?”

Kel bowed. “I was, sir.”

Confusion flashed briefly across his face. “Mindelan?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I heard about the bandits. You did well.” Sir Gareth cleared his throat. “I was going to ask you to take this message–”

“I can do it, sir.” She might not be a page anymore, but if he had meant to treat her as one, she'd act the part.

“Excellent. This is for the king. He's scrying at the top of Balor's Needle. Don't be nervous," he added, misunderstanding the look on Kel's face. "He isn't doing anything that can't be interrupted."

Kel bowed again, then turned away. She had only herself to blame. Sir Gareth had offered her the out of not being a page anymore, and she'd agreed to take the message, knowing neither who it was for nor where they were expected to be. She forced herself to walk steadily down the path to the Needle. It was an architectural marvel, soaring a hundred feet over the palace roofs, but one she preferred to admire from a distance. Gritting her teeth so hard she could hear them creak, Kel climbed the inner stair.

After what felt like forever, she stepped onto the level floor, and then onto a stone platform at the top of the Needle.

"Yes?" The king had heard her arrive: he left the waist-high railing to walk over to her. "What is it?" As Kel straightened from her bow and the king saw her face, he smiled. "It's Keladry of Mindelan, isn't it? I've been hearing about you, young lady."

About my trespass, or about my saving the pages in the hills? Kel wondered. Both, perhaps – the second wouldn't have been possible without the first. She murmured the polite phrase, "Your majesty is kind to remember me."

“Is there a message?”

“My lord Gareth of Naxen thought me for a page, sire, and I said I'd take his message.” She handed it over, while the wind whipped at it. He read the message, noted that it could have waited until morning, offered her a coin for her trouble, offered to spell her down the tower when she failed to will herself to take the first step, and said nary a word about her probation or trespass.

What did he really think of all this? He and Alanna were, or had been, friends, before all this, and Alanna was still King's Champion. He had ordered Alanna to have nothing to do with her when she was a page, but no message of his displeasure appeared when they associated _now_. He was friends with Sir Gareth, and Lord Sir Raoul, as well, for that matter. He had to know what Keladry was up to, and he could have put a stop to it. What _was_ he thinking? Kel shook her head.

 

\--

 

On the first day of what would have (should have) been Kel's third year of page training, Raoul joked with the swordsmaster waiting for the Keladry and the pages to arrive. He didn't ask why she was back at the palace, for all he knew Alanna would have kept her. He simply raised his practice sword as the swordsmaster called first defense.

On other days, Buri appeared. Or she'd practice with the Bazhir man in Own's livery who'd listened to her on the spidren hunt – Qasim. The Lioness never appeared, but Kel knew now that it wasn't a problem with _her_.

When Lord Wyldon sent the third and fourth years to fight in small groups of different sizes, Kel didn't get to follow, for all she was the one who'd taken command at the Battle of the Cliff. Nor did she get to attend the Sunday night lessons in tactics and strategy, though Neal told her about the battles during study sessions. She did, however, aim for the black dot he painted on one quintain when she went to practice with the lance, and she used the distant targets Neal, Quinden, Merric, Faleron, and a couple other fourth year pages were sent to. She didn't enjoy the extra work, per se, but she knew she needed to be as good as the _best_ pages, not the middle of the pack.

Over the clack of weapons on the wrong side of the fence, Keladry asked Raoul and Buri alike what they made of the changes.

“I think Wyldon got a scare when you and your friends stumbled into that bandit camp,” Raoul told her.

“If he's going to keep pretending you don't belong over _there_ ,” Buri said the next day, nodding towards the side of the fence where the pages were training, “he's got to make sure they can take command without adults in charge, like you did.”

She spent Midwinter in the city, with Lalasa and the other girls she'd taught to fight. (In this universe, like every other, she took Lalasa on in some form. And since she made her home in the city, she still taught Lalasa and other maids to defend themselves.) Owen still asked her to teach him to fight better. After the incident with the bandits, he knew Kel was the best, for all she wasn't a page. He joined the maid's morning practice, first bell before dawn.

Her “mysterious benefactor” had been identified as none other than Alanna the Lioness over the summer, and she'd provided a costly, useful holiday gift once again. It was a pair of large saddlebags, well made but ordinary enough on the outside, and fitted with large and small compartments. She found things in those compartments: flint and steel, an oiled pouch full of tinder; small iron pots and a plate and bowl set, all of which fit together; a hank of light, strong rope; tooth-cleaning powder; a tidy sewing kit; hooks and line for fishing; and a curious fanlike creation that, when opened up, was revealed to be a waterproof hat.

She only made one vow for the new year. The Battle at the Cliff had taught her heights could easily be a part of combat. She'd need to defeat that fear, which meant she'd need to face it herself. So every night after supper, she began to take walks that sent her up heights. Watchtowers, galleries, trees. It had been easier under obligations, or when the danger of not climbing was real. Once she'd agreed to take a message for Sir Gareth the younger, she could hardly back out upon hearing it would send her up the Needle. And in the heat of battle, there was no time to freeze. But on her own, there was always the temptation to skip days, or glance down and get back to the ground.

Kel didn't attend the page's summer camp that year. Perhaps Eda sensed the request for an aide would only work once. Or maybe she expected Kel to spend the summer with Alanna. Which Kel did, except for two weeks with her parents. With their other daughters betrothed to husbands they'd helped pick, Piers and Ilane were looking to spend time with their youngest daughter in the summer break.

And then summer rolled by into what would have (should have) been Kel's fourth year of page training. Owen's younger cousins joined the before-dawn practice at Mindelan House, in town. Neal fretted about the fourth year pages tests, and Kel envied him the opportunity to pass or fail.

She should have worried about four years of squireship, and if anyone would choose the Girl. Here, she knew Alanna wouldn't have been allowed to take her, but she was fairly sure Raoul would have. He was still collecting bruises from her every morning the Own was at the palace, after all, and when Lord Wyldon set the fourth years tilting at each other, Raoul saddled up and made sure she got the same opportunity.

 

–

 

Alanna rode up beside the column of the King's Own, looking for the giant that was her friend Raoul. Spotting him, she pulled next to him. “Duke Baird wants me to take Queenscove as a squire,” she told him, without preamble.

“It only makes sense, since he's to be a knight with a healing Gift. Do you mean to do it?”

Alanna didn't answer the question, precisely. “I told him I'd like as not have Keladry of Mindelan with me as well.”

“So I _don't_ get to poach her for the Own?”

Alanna snorted. “You're welcome to try. Baird said said as long as I could do right by his son, he didn't care if I had other traveling companions, or who they might be.”

 

\--

 

Kel shouldn't have been surprised when Raoul asked what she planned to do next. "Given a little fieldwork," he said, wiping his sweaty face on his sleeve after drills. "You'd make an exemplary bandit hunter.” He waved his hand at the dusty practice yard. “And there's not much more for you to learn here.”

She told him. She'd considered the Riders – she'd been spending summers with Alanna, maybe she'd travel with her more, if Alanna would have her. (She was thought Alanna would have her. She'd seen the older knight explode at people who suggested it was time for Kel to accept she wasn't to be a warrior woman.) But she wasn't sure. Her certainty of unknown provenance that she needed to come back to the training yards each year only extended as far as what should have been the end of her page years.

“The Riders could use you. Alanna could use you too – but she's not a commander. And if the Battle at the Cliff taught the lot of us anything, it's that you've a gift for command. Tortall would be foolish not to use your skills.” He hesitated. “The Own could use you too. It'd have to be as an aide, or a standard bearer, or something, but you'd see action, and you'd learn command. Then, if, after two years, you want to join the Riders–”

"I have to – I have to think," she said, and turned and left him standing there beside the low practice yard fence.

She went the stables, where Stefan showed her Peachblossom's bill of sale, with four years stabling and feed. She wondered how Alanna had managed it. _Neal_ had been the one riding the gelding, officially, and was thus the one entitled to purchase him, but the paperwork was in Kel's name. “Well, that answers what happens to you, if I go,” she told the gelding.

She'd known what she wanted since she was seven, kneeling behind her mother amid burning paper and laminated wood. "It's not about the shield," she told herself, and it was as true as she could make it be. "It's not fair but I knew that," she whispered into Peachblossom's side and he blew at her shortly. "The Own," she said. "They go out there. It's real. They fight for people, and isn't that the point?"

Next up was Neal, of course. She wanted to hear his sensible sarcasm. He didn't usher her in when he opened his door, however, just stared at her.

“What happened?” she asked, pushing past him.

“A knight came by.”

“I told you one would.”

“She,” he said.

“Alanna?”

“Yes. It shouldn't be me. I argued, I want you to know. It _should be you_.”

“But I'm not a squire,” she said. “I'm not going to be. And Lord Raoul asked me to join up with the Own, as an aide.”

Neal whistled. “Lord _Raoul_. He's making you a squire in all but name. Sir Alanna told me you were getting an offer she thought you'd take."

“All but name,” Kel said.

“Gods, this will stir up a ruckus. The conservatives, Wyldon, even the king.”

Kel shrugged. “I'm not sure the king cares.”

Neal looked at her. “What?”

She told him about the message she took to him on Balor's Needle. “He had to have known, then, what I was doing. He could have stopped it. I don't think he cares about this for its own sake – just the politics around it.”

Neal shook his head. “Doesn't make it better. You going with the Own?”

“I think so. And you?”

“You don't mind?” Neal said. “The Lioness …”

“I mind,” Kel said, “but I don't mind you.”

"She said she'd teach me healing," Neal said. "More than just the basic stuff the pages get, you know."

His voice was soft and Kel swallowed down a million old jokes about going back to university. Instead she pushed off the bed, grabbed one of his hands in hers, and said, “Neal, that's wonderful.”

 

–

 

She went with the King's Own, in the royal colors of the other men. They tracked and captured bandits, sent them to trial. They helped people prepare for winters. They did the work.

Kel asked Lord Raoul why he took her on, once. Why he had shown up on the wrong side of the practice court fence for years and done drills with a ten, eleven, twelve year old child. She flicked abacus beads, juggling budgets and supplies in her head as she waited for his answer.

“There's more than one kind of warrior,” Raoul told her. He talked about soldiers like in the Own, lone warriors like most knights, and heroes like Alanna the Lioness.

And then: “Commanders, good ones, they're as rare as heroes. Commanders have an eye not just for what they do, but for what those around them do. You've shown flashes of being a commander. I've seen it. My job is to see if you will do more than flash, with the right training. The realm needs commanders. Tortall is big. We have too many still-untamed pockets, too cursed many hideyholes for rogues, and plenty of hungry enemies to nibble at our borders and our seafaring trade. If you have what it takes, the Crown should use you. We're too desperate for good commanders to let one slip away, even a female one.”

“The Battle at the Cliff, you mean?”

“I couldn't have done what you did there, when I was twelve.”

“But you were outside the fence _before_ then …” Kel said.

“Alanna wanted to grab you and run off adventuring right away. I promised to keep an eye on you, if she'd wait a bit and see what you did. When I saw what you were doing, it only seemed right to help you try. Now, finish that” – he pointed to the slate – “and you can stop for tonight.”

 

–

 

Neal had been entirely correct about conservatives making a fuss about Kel's appointment. Raoul knocked them out of the saddle when they challenged him, though it was Lerant, not Kel, who helped him get into his armor. Kel helped Flyn argue logistics and housing with the progress quartermasters, standing shoulder to stubborn shoulder. She knew how to joust, having practiced with Lord Raoul even before joining the Own, but she wasn't challenged. She did, however, slap a knight for insulting Lerant's family and Lord Raoul on one occasion. For all she was neither knight nor squire, she was a noble, she knew how to joust, and she won her challenge, though she had to threaten the knight with a second challenge with swords before he yielded.

She raced Hoshi against Bazhir horses, learned Raoul's speedy, efficient stitch, practiced glaive work with the women, and taught all Third company a few moves with the weapon. She practiced swordwork with Alanna as well, and gave an exhibition against the older woman at one tournament. Alanna won, of course, but every spectator willing to see skill when it was in front of their face could tell Keladry of Mindelan knew what she was doing with the weapon.

Three girls found the pair, afterwards, asking advice about going for their own shields. Alanna told them her own squire had been fifteen when he started page training. Kel told them to run, to build their stamina. They both warned the girls not to expect people to be honorable or fair about their attempt. Neither thought King Jon was the one prejudiced against women who would be knights – Alanna pointed out he'd been her knight master, and Kel was certain he could have stopped her sideways path to being a warrior at any point if he'd cared to. But others would be. “Honestly, give it until there's a new training master,” Kel had to say. “I don't trust the current one to be fair.”

 

–

 

Joren still died in the Chamber, Vincent still came out with confessions, and Wyldon still resigned shortly after. Kel didn't get to hear his reasoning, nor could she ask him to take the still unattached Owen as a squire, but she felt relieved for the girls she'd spoken to on progress.

Neal, of course, passed his Ordeal when his turn came. Alanna was there with a blanket and a comment to make him snicker, and Kel was there to see him step out as a living knight. He was put in charge of the refugee camp, where Kel went as well, attached to the same squad of the Own sent to defend it.

Dom got her banned from any construction work, so she signed herself up for extra latrine duty. She trained refugees for combat with whatever weapons could be found – bows, mostly, and staves improvised from branches and walking sticks. Tobe, eventually, managed to ask her about the other children who wanted to learn to fight, and she thought about being eleven and twelve and thirteen, on the wrong side of the practice yard fence. “The first hour before dawn,” she told him, just as she'd told maids in Corus.

 

–

 

Her squad of the Own was eventually sent back to Giantkiller, and Neal was delivering reports when Haven was overrun. Kel sent Neal and the soldiers back to Giantkiller after they buried the dead – shockingly, Neal listened.

Later, Kel wasn't sure if it was shellshock or strategy that sent him back to Giantkiller after. They were almost to the river border with Scanra before Neal caught up-- with Owen, Lerant, and Tobe in tow. “Alanna's on her way, too,” he informed her.

“You're _joking_ ,” she said.

He wasn't, though. Alanna reached them as they neared the river crossing, led them to the smugglers only she and Neal had met before. They followed the refugees, who fought back at every step, and freed the adults, who followed them to the Nothing Man's castle. Alanna and Neal both healed wounds, after the fight, and Kel lead them home.

Neal was pardoned. Alanna was pardoned. The convict soldiers were pardoned. Raoul insisted the members of the Own had been “within operational parameters” when they went deep into Scanran territory to rescue the refugees, so they needed no pardon either.

 

–

 

A few months later, the king called Kel for an audience and she went. Tobe refused to let her go anywhere without him, so she dragged him south with her and left him to be fed, prodded, and mended in the hands of Lalasa and her parents. Alanna, too, went south, unsure what Jon wanted with Kel, but sure to be there for it, whatever it was.

It was a medal and an invitation to face the Ordeal.

She wasn't sure what Jon wanted-- if she was getting a condemnation or a commendation-- but it turned out to be a medal and an invitation to face the Ordeal.

On her way out of the room, Wyldon caught her elbow and she let him. He had been hovering the back of the chamber, listening with his face full of something she didn't bother identifying. Alanna glared at him.

“I was stubborn, Mindelan,” Wyldon said. “I should have listened to the voice of honor.”

Alanna started to say something. Kel was quicker. “My life should never have depended on the quality of your honor,” she told him, then turned and left for the city.

 

–

 

They had her re-take the page examinations she missed, while she was in Corus. She passed, of course. The one hitch was that she disarmed the examiner for swords too quickly to judge anything but the disarming – sparring with Alanna had made her quick. And towering over the pages she took the exams with was a touch awkward. (She still told Neal she didn't feel bad for his having chosen to start late.)

Raoul of course, was one of her knight mentors for the Ordeal – she'd been his squire in all but name. Neal offered to be the other (hesitantly, as if he expected she'd find better options), as did Alanna. Wyldon did too, but she turned him down. She turned the king down too. Choosing between Neal and Alanna was hard. Knowing she'd take either of them over Wyldon or the king was not.

In the end, Neal was her other mentor, but Alanna kept vigil overnight. “It's been done before,” the Lioness reassured the younger women. “I've done it before, before Jon's Ordeal. And someone was always going to need to keep an eye out when you sat vigil. Nothing can affect the Chamber, but I can affect anyone who would try to affect _you_.”

In this universe, too, Kel spat in the face of the nightmare machine, scared certain it would kill her. She still walked out of the chamber while most others stumbled or fell. The Chamber didn't have to force her out, though, since she wasn't demanding information about the Nothing Man she'd already killed.

Her parents were at her side almost as soon as she stepped out of the Chamber, and Neal and Alanna as well. “Gods all bless, lady knight,” the smaller red-head told her, and squeezed her tight in a hug.

 


End file.
